@ Sunday Times Books LIVE

“I often say that if I’d written this book as fiction, it would have been more believable because so many of the stories it contains are far stranger than any fiction I could have conceived,” Julian Rademeyer told Get It Joburg North about his book, Killing for Profit.

Rademeyer discussed the proposed legalisation of the trade in rhino horn, saying that he thinks “it’s a proposal born of desperation because nothing we’ve tried so far seems to be working…basically it’s a desperate gamble.”

Who’d ever choose to hang out with poachers, mercenaries and gunrunners? Well, local investigative journalist Julian Rademeyer for one. He had to, to write his shocking exposé about the secret trade in rhino horns.

It’s time for a reality check and we have no intention of softening the blow. At this rate, rhinos, which have roamed the earth for 50 million years, are going to become extinct on our watch. But that’s not the most shocking part. In Julian Rademeyer’s book Killing for Profit, he followed the bloody trail of the secret trade in rhino horns right into the underbelly of the black markets where he discovered a story that involved covert military operations, mercenaries, pimps, murderers, diplomats, gunrunners and international crime bosses.